“Columbia, which counts President Barack Obama, singer Art Garfunkel and hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb among its alumni, said its endowment stood at $8.2 billion on June 30, the end of its fiscal year.

The gain marks a dramatic improvement from fiscal 2012, when Columbia, located in Upper Manhattan, reported an investment increase of 2.3 percent. Most of the nation’s top colleges and universities reported weak returns last year.

But with stock markets rallying as the global economy picked up some speed, many Ivy League schools reported double-digit returns this year. Both public and private markets contributed to gains, officials at several schools said.” (Source)

1) Columbia University said on Thursday that its endowment posted an 11.5 percent investment return during the 2013 fiscal year, making it the latest Ivy League school to report double-digit gains as stock markets rallied.Columbia, which counts President Barack Obama, singer Art Garfunkel and hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb among its alumni, said its endowment stood at $8.2 billion on June 30, the end of its fiscal year.The gain marks a dramatic improvement from fiscal 2012, when Columbia, located in Upper Manhattan, reported an investment increase of 2.3 percent. Most of the nation’s top colleges and universities reported weak returns last year.But with stock markets rallying as the global economy picked up some speed, many Ivy League schools reported double-digit returns this year. Both public and private markets contributed to gains, officials at several schools said. (Source)

2) Columbia University reported a 2.3 percent return on its endowment investments in fiscal 2012, topping results at Harvard University and Stanford University. Columbia’s endowment value as of June 30 was $7.65 billion, the university said today in an e-mailed statement. That’s down from $7.8 billion a year earlier because withdrawals to fund operations were made at a rate that exceeded the investment return, Brian Connolly, a Columbia spokesman, said in an e-mail. Endowments and foundations had the worst returns of any class of institutional investor in the year through June, gaining 0.37 percent, consulting firm Wilshire Associates said in an Aug. 6 report. Harvard, the world’s richest school with an endowment of $30.7 billion, reported a 0.05 percent loss on its investments, while Stanford posted a gain of 1 percent. (Source)

3) Columbia University’s endowment posted a 23.6% return for the 2011 fiscal year, good enough for top of the Ivy League. It’s the second straight year Columbia has claimed the best return, after growing its endowment by 17.3% in 2010. Yale rebounded from its Ivy-lowest performance in 2010 (8.9%) to tie Princeton for second in 2011, each posting a 21.9% yield. Dartmouth College trailed the pack with an 18.4% return. Notably, Columbia was the only Ivy to best the S&P 500’s 22% gain over the twelve months ending June 30th. “Our ability to achieve academic excellence in the highest tier with several peer institutions that have far larger endowments than our own has been greatly aided on our relative financial stability during these turbulent years,” said Columbia president Lee C. Bollinger in a statement. The school declined to comment on the strategies employed by the endowment. (Source)

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